Word: strongmen
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What always seems to wreck Africa's hopes is that so few of its strongmen are really interested in peace. Foday Sankoh and his Revolutionary United Front rampaged across Sierra Leone for nearly a decade, hacking the limbs off countless civilians in a blood-soaked quest for power. Sick of the slaughter, members of the international community brokered a peace pact that last July ultimately gave the rebels amnesty, a share in government power and a piece of the country's diamond wealth. It apparently wasn't enough, so violence has erupted again in poor, shattered Sierra Leone. And this...
...fact that the current Pakistani leader, General Parvez Musharraf, took power in a military coup that ousted Nawaz may have created an obstacle to the meeting - at least at the level of appearances - but Washington has a long tradition of close cooperation with Pakistani strongmen, recognizing also perhaps that the prospects for stability may be greater under military rule than they were under Nawaz's corrupt civilian administration. President Clinton will go through the motions of urging a speedy return to civilian rule, but terrorism remains the most important point of contention between the U.S. and the country that remains...
Floods and earthquakes usually spell political trouble for Latin American strongmen, but Venezuela's killer flood may affirm the popularity of President Hugo Chavez. The former paratrooper, who once served jail time for a failed coup attempt, personally took command of 1,000 elite paratroopers over the weekend and supervised the delivery of disaster relief. By deploying the military throughout the country to help Venezuela cope with the devastation that has killed at least 10,000 people, Chavez appears to be delivering on his populist commitment to share the oil-rich country's resources more equitably. And to underscore...
...their capital markets open to the world before their financial markets are ready, and Washington is less likely to view the main purpose of economic diplomacy as making the world safe for hedge funds. Above all, the crisis has reinforced democratic tendencies and made it much harder for paternalistic strongmen to claim they know best...
...frustrated democracy. By the time of his mysterious death in the new capital city of Abuja last week, he had been elevated into something he never was, the figurehead of the political freedom Nigeria never had. No matter that for years Abiola was thick as thieves with the military strongmen who were stealing millions from their country; no matter that he pocketed money from sweetheart deals he had cut with the greedy generals. Nigerians were desperate for a hero to worship, and Abiola, who would have been 61 next month, fit the bill...